Cracks in the Façade

 Have you ever had a day that went off the rails before it started?

I have them, all too frequently.

This one started at 1 a.m. this morning when my nine-year-old daughter appeared at my bedside and announced that she couldn’t sleep because her throat hurt. I dragged myself out of bed and trudged downstairs to give her some medicine. Then, remembering how I craved my own mother’s touch when I was sick as a child, I laid down on the couch and cradled her until she fell asleep.

Sorry, I just had to break up a fight. Where was I?

That’s right. Around 4 a.m. I woke from a doze to realize she had finally fallen asleep. I thought about simply getting up then and there since my alarm would go off at 5:30 anyway. Then again, I’d left my alarm by my bedside, and I wasn’t going back up those stairs. I lay down on the other couch section and, you guessed it, overslept.

I awoke to chaos. My two younger children had managed to unlock their tablets seven hours early and were playing a game together. My son’s frustration was already at the boiling point over too many losses. That was when my teenage daughter woke up, bringing with her a full load of teen irritability. Since her siblings are her favorite target at the best of times … ka-boom!

I instantly shut down my two screen bandits, which resulted in an even larger eruption from my overwrought son. He slammed into the office and could be heard raging and crying over the injustices of life. I braced myself and prayed for calm and the ability to discipline correctly if that door reopened to a mess of broken boxes and torn papers—or worse. Fortunately for both of us, when he eventually reopened the door and apologized, I could see that the rage had confined itself to verbal expression only.

To many of you, that will seem like over-the-top bad behavior, and it is. For me, though, the bad behavior is offset by the memory of how much worse he used to be, the memory of the physical threats and broken items. He is growing, however slowly. It is a blessing that his rage is only in words and that I can respond with calm and compassion. It wasn’t always like that.

There is a history there that I rarely show people. I thought I could write about it now, but maybe I can’t. Not yet.

I started to write this post not because I wanted pity for my hard day. First, because it’s not really that hard a day, but also because I wanted to be honest about what life really looks like. Too often, we show a façade of peace and productivity to the world around us, even to our closest friends, but never reveal what a hard day looks like. I value vulnerability and honesty, but I hesitate with this blog. How dark do I paint the gloom that sometimes hovers over our days? Shouldn’t I always have a positive, inspiring message? Shouldn’t I always be prepared with a silver lining? I want to be honest about life, but I also know there may be people who read these posts who don’t have my best interests at heart, who will take any cracks in my façade and pry them open into gaping wounds.

That’s scary.

I expressed that to a friend the other day, about the time gaps that happen in this blog because I don’t want to write through the hard times or express the darkness of our struggles. She gently reminded me that honesty of that kind might be what is drawing people to this little site. I felt like a hypocrite. I’d recently been pondering the need for vulnerability and accountability in my life, but I was afraid to be honest in the one platform I have. Why would I want to be that honest? Because maybe you’re in a place with a cracking façade, feeling alone, feeling that everyone else has their act together. I don’t want to encourage that feeling. Believe me, you’re not alone.

So here’s how the rest of my morning went. My teen withdrew to sketch for a while. My youngest remains on the couch, still sniffly but well enough to complain about being bored (and yet claim to be too sick to do schoolwork). My son, perfectly cheerful again, has been talking to me nonstop for the last two hours. I scrambled to maintain my priorities, focusing on Bible and prayer, but feeling so OCD that I had to search the house for a black pen because I couldn’t handle changing ink colors in the middle of my prayer journal. Then I began writing this post, only to have to deal with the fact that my son thoughtlessly barged in on my teen daughter’s quiet time and received an elbow in the stomach. Her defense? “I didn’t mean to elbow him that hard.”

This is our life. Perfection? Not quite. Progress? Believe it or not, yes. And that’s where I have to focus, on those cracks in the façade that show our progress from deep black to dark gray. Because that’s real. That’s honest. Some days are apple dapple cake and homesteading. Other days are rage and tears and depression.

And because I like silver linings, here is a whole silver cloud. God is always there. He is there in the days with the dapples of sunlight and purring kittens, and in the days of rain clouds and chaos. He is there when you think you have your act together and the days when you know you don’t.

In my journal today—the one that necessitated black ink—the Scripture quote was from Psalm 51.

“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10).

The Psalm continues, “Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit” (Ps. 51:11-12 ESV).

I’d encourage you to read the whole Psalm. King David went through many dark times in his life, but this song was written during a dark time of his own making, when he’d compounded the sin of adultery with the sin of murder. Still, David broke down his façade, was honest about his sin, and knew that God would be with him in that darkness, too.

“For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;

you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;

a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Ps. 51:16-17).